“Ice Cream Truck,” NYC-based rapper Cazwell’s “song for retards” and hot Latino boys, probably paid for a few new pairs of high tops since he inked an endorsement deal for the song. But are there other riches for a gay rapper in the music industry? (Because after all, the only way to measure success and self-worth is with dollar signs, commas, and zeroes.) “I think I’m welcomed in any (air quotes) industry that they feel like I’m gonna make them money,” says Caz. “I don’t really feel that the music industry is homophobic. I think that they’re only phobia is not making money.”
barriers to entry
Cazwell: The Music Industry Isn’t Homophobic. It’s Just Not-Making-Money-Phobic
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VagrantMan
Cazwell is a rapper?
UhHuh
Maybe the music industry is just no-talent phobic.
brian
Cazwell is totally wrong. The music industry is EXTREMELY homophobic, especially towards male-male sexuality. It is far more welcoming of female-female sexuality. From Madonna to Lady Gaga, women have been allowed to indicate and market their “bisexuality”. Men, on the other hand, haven’t.
The music industry is very similar to the porn industry. In the porn industry, female-female sexuality is incorporated into the mainstream of porn. Male-male sexuality, on the other hand, is segregated into the “gay” or “bi” category. The porn industry actually classifies lesbian acts as “straight”. LOL.
Don’t underestimate the role of women in promoting this hypocritical double standard. Women need to take some of the blame.
Dave
@brian: There’s a pretty big difference between lesbian-porn-marketed-to-lesbians and lesbian-porn-marketed-to-straight-men.
The latter is about as ridiculous as the “gay” erotica written for, by, and marketed to straight women.
Both take our sexuality and make it into a kind of fetish spectacle for heterosexuals. The difference is that, since straight men have more power than straight women, there’s more money in lesbian-spectacle-porn for men than in gay-spectacle-porn for women. Since men have more power, you can aggressively market things to straight men that don’t appeal to straight women, but you can’t really aggressively market things to straight women that don’t appeal to straight men — and so the former becomes fairly mainstream while the latter remains somewhat fringe.
Nevertheless, equating same-sex fetishism for straights with actual same-sex sexuality is problematic, and trying to blame women for this seems a bit misguided. It’s unfortunate, but it seems that heteros manage to be sexist about their heterosexism.
Jeepers
I think Cazwell (even his name is annoying) stole the ice cream song from Ice Cream and Cake by the Buckwheat Boyz. Look it up on YouTube and you’ll see what I mean.
rrr
@brian: You have to be Jason. The bisexuality obsession and misogyny are a big give away.
If male/male was a huge money maker music and porn companies would be catering to that. It’s not as big of a money maker as male/female or lipstick lesbian female/female. Men drive porn sales. Including male/male in something puts off a lot of potential straight male customers, a business negative, and there’s not a wide enough and powerful enough demand from other groups for their dollars to make up for the lost straight male ones. Male/female and female/female do not have any comparable business negative and they get a business positive from straight males.
It’s not women, it’s straight guys. Straight women in general are a lot more open to male/male art and artists than straight men. More mainstream gay media projects like Brokeback Mountain and Queer as Folk were only financially viable because of the straight female audience that joined the gay male one. Straight fans of American out gay male performers like Adam Lambert are also primarily women.
alan brickman
Very smart! have three of his songs on my ipod!
jj
I completely agree with him. If they can make money from you, they dont care if youre gay, straight, black, white, 3 legged …i liked the ice cream truck vid and song – they were fun – but cazwell is still niche
CONVERSATION CHAMBER
@brian: “Brian” (aka Jason) you’re a complete *wimp* for posting under that alias.
Marcus M.
I understand what he’s saying. I don’t think the music industry would be afraid of male/male sexuality if it was profitable. The problem is they assume (sadly, probably correctly) that most of America won’t be into it. If it was a guaranteed smash, they’d totally go there. They’re just afraid of how the masses will take it.
Kev C
The Music Industry isn’t about music either.
TwlightoftheDogs
The problem is that within the film industry we can see how those statements are often a creation of what is the prevailing belief. A movie about gay men won’t do well they say because they say it. Thus, they create this reality that creates what they believe. The Jim Carrey movie, they basically don’t show it for 2 years, so, then no one should be surprised its not going to make money. And when a gay movie does make money, they say, well that’s an aberration. They used to do the same with African-American movies. My point in saying all this- how dow we know whether gay singers can sell other than the fact they don’t try to sell them?
skzip888
@Dave: Men have more influence, but women spend more. Most housewives just won’t dare the stigma to buying porn unless they can call it “romance.”
As for the Caswell, that video is just so incredibly awkward. Half those gogo boys didn’t seem to know where they were.
Max Campbell
#3 Brian, totally agree with you!
Max Campbell
But straight women like gay porn and bi porn! It should become a more popular in mass culture. It is our chance!
Max Campbell
It is Chance to overcome bisexual double standards and to leave a ghetto!
Cam
I think that the music industry uses the excuse of dollars to support their homophobia.
Look, Hollywood is homophobic because they claim that gays won’t make money.
Well, Will and Grace, Ellen, Brokeback Mountain, How I Met Your Mother, etc… all made or are making large sums of money.
Brokeback Mountain made more money worldwide than “Scream”, yet we not only got three other Scream Movies. We got a huge number of knock-offs.
Even though Brokeback made more, we didn’t have any additional large studio’s releasing ANY gay themed movies.
So the Entertainment industry can claim it’s all about money, but even when gay themes make money they don’t seem to notice.
Josh
Cam, are you…are you asking for a Brokeback Mountain sequel? Is that what I’m reading? Because, I mean, we both know that it’s way easier to make mindless sequels for teen-oriented slasher flicks than for romantic tragedies.
Brokeback 2: Back 2 Backside?
no thanks
maybe they don’t like his bad breath? He has really super duper bad breath.
divkid
I don’t care what this TWAT is talking about, or what this story is about, all I want to say is: DID YOU SEE ***THAT*** ASS!!! No, really, DID YOU!?… WELL SHUT UP THEN, COZ I NEED TO TAKE A MOMENT…
Ok. Carry on.